


Spiralling

by DemiCatra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Awkward Tension, Bisexual Ginny Weasley, F/F, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Lesbian Neville Longbottom, Mild Language, Pansexual Ginny Weasley, Post-War, The Castle Stans Transgender People, The Sorting Hat, Trans Female Character, Trans Neville Longbottom, established secrets, not the sexual kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25303237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemiCatra/pseuds/DemiCatra
Summary: Neville and Ginny return for their Seventh/Eighth Year of study. Neville has a secret and has been wanting to test something for a few months now. Ginny knows and is determined to help her best friend.(Also features a cameo of the first Slytherin Sorting Post-War.)
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23
Collections: FtCF: Transgender Characters





	Spiralling

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [RavenpuffLove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenpuffLove/pseuds/RavenpuffLove) in the [FucktheCanonFestTransgenderCharacters](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/FucktheCanonFestTransgenderCharacters) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> A Gryffindor student realizes their true gender after she discovers that she has been able to go up the girls dormitory stairs, but boys aren't.
> 
> **AN:**
> 
> For the first part of this story, I have chosen to utilize he/him/his pronouns for our MC. This was something I debated at great length and changed time and again in my head as I pre-wrote this piece. I cycled through most possibilities that one might be able to consider but in the end have elected to start off here. <3 Also, I know this may not start where you’re expecting! Hopefully that’s okay and it still holds up to your expectations! The muse and her flightful pixies work in mysterious ways, do they not? 
> 
> I also elected to tag Ginny as both bisexual and pansexual. *shrug* I float in the realm of bi/pansexuality on the days where I'm not completely ace. (I'm aceflux/myrsexual; my sexuality is fluid and floats around but generally lies somewhere on the ace spectrum 99.8% of the time.) I've also marked Nev as a lesbian since in this universe that's how I headcanon her. Feel free to ask questions, comment, or give suggestions!
> 
> Additionally, Black Lives Matter, Trans Rights are Human Rights, Women's Rights are Human Rights, No Human is Illegal, Love is Love, Climate Change and Science are Real and none of the previous is up for debate. (If I missed something, I am human and please forgive me.)
> 
> My work below, however, I am open to receiving constructive criticism on! At the moment, it is unbeta'd. I have it out to an alpha now and intend to reach out to my beta!
> 
> There's a high chance that there will be a sequel and/or prequel to this piece at some point, so keep an eye out! (:

Neville was abruptly pulled from his thoughts on staircases and whether or not the castle could truly be sentient when the soft chatter that had continued through the start of the new year’s Sorting died around him. He glanced across the Gryffindor table at Ginny and knew automatically what must have happened. They held a full conversation in the span of mere seconds with just a look. 

They both surveyed around the Great Hall in the deafening silence that surrounded them. Everyone was glancing away from the first year who sat upon the stool at the front of the room, trembling in fear and uncertainty. Her bushy, auburn curls stuck out from beneath the Sorting Hat and her hands gripped the stool so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. 

She was the first. 

Not the first to Sort this year, no. But, she had Sorted Slytherin. 

Slytherin.

The House that many had called for the dissolution of before school restarted this year. 

The House that had seen so few students return that two of their tables sat completely empty. 

The House that no one knew quite what to do with, just, yet.

Michael Corner sat over at the Ravenclaw table, glaring daggers at the poor child. Hannah Abbott, the Fat Friar floating pensive beside her, had rounded her shoulders and hunched inward looking for all the world as though she were trying to disappear. Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini had both paled at the Slytherin table to such an extent that they looked as though they might collapse at the merest suggestion of air or movement in their direction; Pansy a pasty white, Blaise a sickening caramel grey. 

Neville stared across the open space to Draco Malfoy to see his reaction. Would he have one? Draco, for his part, appeared a stolid marble statue but for his eyes which fluttered closed.

Neville looked back into the deep brown eyes that sparked across from him, fire burning within their depths, still, after everything they had been through together. 

“Come on.” He breathed so only she could hear. “Let’s go.” 

Ginny nodded. 

They had not discussed this potentiality, but they both knew what needed to happen. 

They stood as one to the shock of everyone around them. Wide eyes followed their progress across the Hall from all four Houses and from the Head Table as they made their way to the front.

Neville gently removed the Hat from the girl, Lindsey Bell’s, head as Ginny bent slightly in front of her and held out a hand, waiting patiently. 

Neville handed the Hat back to Professor Vector who merely quirked one eyebrow in their direction.

Lindsey gaped at Ginny, down to her hand, over to Neville, then back to Ginny again.

“You know,” Neville stated quietly, “Professor Vector here is Deputy Headmistress now and she was Sorted Slytherin during her time here as a student.”

The Professor inclined her head in affirmation and gave a small smirk at Lindsey’s look of wonder in her direction.

“It’s okay to be Slytherin.” Ginny said. “It just means that you’re _smart_ and _brave_ and _loyal_ in different ways than the rest of us. But you _are_ all of those things, too. That you’re meant to do something great with your life. That you’ll be there for your friends and family through everything but you’ll remember yourself in the process. You’ve been and will be resourceful and you make a good leader if you want to be.”

Ginny leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially so only Lindsey could hear her, but Neville knew what she would be saying, she had confided in him once, in the past. 

“I was almost a Slytherin.”

Lindsey pulled in a sharp breath and jerked back a bit to look at Ginny who just grinned at her. 

“But, but...Katie..?” Lindsey’s voice wavered within her unshed tears.

“Will love you just the same and want to know _all_ about your new dorms she never got to see as a Gryffindor.” Neville told her.

Lindsey bit her bottom lip. Grabbing Ginny’s hand decisively, she slid down off of the stool and Neville and Ginny turned towards the Hall of students, daring them all with a look for anyone to say anything, do anything, to hurt this young girl between them. 

Lindsey reached out and grabbed onto Neville’s hand, as well. Together, the three of them walked to the Slytherin table and sat. 

Still not a sound could be heard but for the breathing of those around them. Then:

“CATTERMOLE, ANDREW!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

They stayed with her for the rest of the Feast and welcomed each new Slytherin to their group as they were Sorted. Afterward, they walked by Lindsey's side into the Great Hall until Flora Carrow came to collect the handful of first year Slytherins. They watched silently, side-by-side as the new serpents descended into the dungeons.

"We'll meet them here in the morning?"

"Of course."

***

Drained following the Not-So-Welcoming Feast, Neville collapsed into his favorite oversized armchair near the fireplace in the Common Room. He dragged his fingers through his now shoulder length hair and groaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.

“Well, that went absolutely splendidly.”

“Could’ve been worse.” Ginny intoned as she prodded him in the side to move over enough for her to squeeze in next to him.

“Mmph. Suppose.” 

Ginny tossed her legs across his own and let her head fall to his shoulder. Anticipating the early morning they would have the following day with classes starting, everyone else had already disappeared up the stairs for the evening.

“So?”

“So.”

“ _So?_ ”

“So what?”

“Oh, come ON, Nev! Stop being obtuse. You and I _both_ know what I’m asking.”

Neville let his eyes fall shut and his head thunk back heavily against the head of the chair. Yes, yes they did.

“Nev,” Ginny said softly. “We both know the truth no matter what happens. _Fuck_ the stairs if they don’t agree this time. But they let you up last year when Brittany kept having those night terrors because of the Carrows.”

“Exactly, Gin. She was having night terrors. I was...well not a Prefect but I guess I may well have been. I was DA. And I wasn’t gonna let her suffer that. Not if,” Neville swallowed, “Not if I could help somehow.”

Neville looked at Ginny, desperate. “What if it _doesn’t_ work this time?” He asked, his voice cracking. “Then! Then, it was just because we were in a shit situation and Hogwarts knew and was doing what she could to help! Gin!” 

Tears started to softly leak out of his eyes. “Gin.” His voice broke again. “What if I’m crazy? What if all these years of confusion, of not knowing what’s wrong with me, all these years that had finally started to make some sense after I thought about all that happened last year over this summer when you and I had our heart to heart that night in the field at the Burrow…

“What if?”

Ginny lifted her head and stared deep into Neville’s eyes. “We aren’t crazy, Nev. This is real. _YOU_ are real. Hogwarts knows it, too. I can feel it. She agrees. And like I said, fuck it otherwise.” She cupped his cheek. 

“You know I love you? Right?”

Neville did lose it then, sobbing quietly. 

Ginny tucked his hair behind his right ear. “You’re beautiful, you know. And if you’ll have me, like I think you will, you’re _my_ beautiful. _My_ _beautiful_ _woman_. No matter what those fucking stairs say. And we’re gonna get through this together. And we’re going to help Lindsey and all the rest get through this first year of theirs in Slytherin. We’re going to create that bloody Inter-House Common Room we talked about under the stars and we’re going to fight to make this insane world better. And we’re going to do it together. And we’re going to do it as our true selves, yeah? And maybe later we’ll even think about Bonding and children or adoption.” Ginny gave Neville a quick peck on the lips. “We’ve got this. Together.”

Neville squeezed her eyes shut, bottom lip pulled between her teeth, unable to speak and nodded tremulously. “Yeah,” she croaked. “Together.”

“Okay, then.” Ginny nodded shortly and emphatically. “Let’s go to bed, love.”

Neville followed her across the room to the girls’ staircase.They spiraled upwards, spiralling all the way to the top the way her mind had spiralled for years. The way it had spiralled as she tried to figure out why she felt out of place with the boys in their dorm; as she tried to figure out why her body felt like it was betraying her more days than not and why she felt out of place in her own skin. Why she seemed to feel more comfortable with Ginny and Luna, Su and Irene. As she stared upwards, she felt like maybe she should feel more like she was at a bit of an impasse than she actually did, now that they were here. Because...because…did it even really matter what a castle thought? 

_Oh for Godric’s sake!_

She stepped upwards. And then again. And again. 

Spiralling. 

And the stairs didn’t change.


End file.
